Rise and Fall of the Media Establishment

by West,Darrell M.

• ISBN13: 9780312247775
• ISBN10: 031224777X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-12-21
• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing

Summary

Darrell West argues against prevailing wisdom that the media has increased in influence in the past decade. Covering over 200 years of American history, beginning in colonial America and ending with the present day, The Rise and Fall of the Media Establishment provides an overview of the media in various key stages of American History, paying particular attention to the rise and fall in influence of the media elite. West organizes the book into five distinct media eras: the Partisan, Commercial, Objective, Interpretive, and Fragmented Media. Each chapter, organized around these media eras, includes case studies that illustrate the theme of that chapter. Ideal for the general reader as well as the academic, The Rise and Fall of the Media Establishment offers an accessible, engaging book with a challenging thesis.

Author Biography

Darrell M. West is John Hazen White Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
About the Author	xiii
Introduction	1	(7)
The Partisan Media	8	(18)
Dueling Newspapers: Hamilton versus Jefferson	9	(4)
The Alien and Sedition Laws	13	(1)
The Jeffersonian Era	14	(3)
The Jacksonian Revolution	17	(4)
The Weakness of the Partisan Press	21	(5)
The Commercial Media	26	(24)
The Impact of Technology on News Transmission	27	(1)
The Rise of Independent Editors	28	(3)
The Challenge of Slavery	31	(4)
The Civil War	35	(3)
Reconstruction	38	(4)
The Emergence of Pulitzer and Hearst	42	(2)
The Spanish-American War of 1898	44	(1)
The Media and Nation Building at the Turn of the Twentieth Century	45	(5)
The Objective Media	50	(18)
The Rise of Objectivity	51	(2)
The Progressive Movement	53	(2)
World War II	55	(2)
The Expansion of Mass Education following the War	57	(2)
The Evaluation of Scholars	59	(2)
The Case of Vietnam	61	(2)
The Watergate Scandal	63	(1)
The Pinnacle of Source Credibility	64	(4)
The Interpretive Media	68	(16)
The Shift to Interpretation	70	(1)
The Rise of News Analysis	71	(1)
Ad Watches	72	(1)
Political Punditry	73	(2)
The William Kennedy Smith Trial	75	(2)
The Hill-Thomas Hearings	77	(3)
Impact on Media Credibility	80	(4)
The Fragmented Media	84	(26)
Fragmentation of the Media Marketplace	85	(2)
The Role of Murdoch and Turner in Fragmenting the Media	87	(3)
The Rise of the World Wide Web	90	(3)
The Decline of Homogeneous News Coverage	93	(2)
The O. J. Simpson Trials	95	(3)
The Clinton Sex Scandals	98	(4)
The Death of John F. Kennedy, Jr.	102	(2)
Backlash against the Media	104	(6)
The Future of the Media	110	(19)
The Declining Power of the Media Establishment	111	(1)
The Erosion of Media Professionalism	112	(2)
Protection in Large Numbers	114	(3)
Risks Facing the Fragmented Media	117	(5)
Future Scenarios for the Mass Media	122	(3)
Conclusion: The Crucial Media Role in Democracy	125	(4)
Appendix	129	(4)
Index	133